Mercedes play down early advantage

Mercedes have played down the early advantage they seem to have during the Jerez winter test.

The first winter test session of the season certainly indicated that the Mercedes powered cars had an advantage over the rest of the field.

They all completed some good runs, whilst the likes of Red Bull generally struggled to get going following the changes in regulations and the introduction of new 1.6-litre V6 turbo hybrid powertrains.

That had meant that a lot of the worlds media have installed Mercedes as the early season favourites for a push at the title with Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton looking strong.

‘In past seasons, the favourites after the first test were not always in the same position at the first race, We have to have a degree of caution, especially at this early stage.’ said Mercedes boss Toto Wolff to the BBC.

‘A few different teams have looked strong so far in different ways, but we won’t know the full story for a while yet; not even after the first couple of races, I would say,’

Ferrari also completed some good miles, but Renault have struggled.

Red Bull motorsport chief Helmut Marko has admitted that Adrian Newey has literally had to go back to the drawing board to ‘redesign some elements in the rear of the car’, while Lotus are hoping to iron out some of their issues during a ‘filming day’, where they can run a maximum of 100km at Jerez.

Renault are said to be two-months behind schedule on their power-unit which is also having a major effect on Toro Rosso and Caterham.